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4 months ago

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May 24, 2019

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The Director of National Intelligence has just issued a thinly-veiled warning to Attorney General Bill Barr to not overstep now that President Trump has created unprecedented, sweeping powers for the head of the Dept. of Justice. Thursday night the intelligence community and intel experts were stunned when Trump announced he had given Barr total authority to declassify any information related to any investigation of the 2016 election.

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Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) warned Barr in a public memo to work “in accordance with the long-established standards to protect highly-sensitive classified information,” and not “put our national security at risk.”

Those are strong words that indicate President Trump did not consult with Coats, and likely did not consult with FBI Director Chris Wray or CIA Director Gina Haspel before tweeting out Barr’s new powers, then heading to Japan barely 12 hours later.

Coats added that the Intelligence Community “will continue to faithfully execute its mission of providing timely, apolitical intelligence to the President and policymakers,” again, clearly suggesting that Trump’s actions, and possibly Barr’s, are entirely partisan.

Interestingly, Coats characterized Barr’s investigation into how the Russia investigation was started as a “review of intelligence activities related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election,” which is not what Barr is conducting.

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Trump’s decision to hand Barr the keys to the Intelligence Community’s kingdom is seen as just the latest in a long line of actions – albeit possibly the most dangerous to date – of Trump using the presidency to attack the Intel community – and to “investigate the investigators.”

Intelligence experts have begun to weigh in on Coats’ memo.

Former Intelligence Community attorney, now the Executive Editor of Lawfare, and a Brookings Senior Fellow, and CNN National Security and Legal Analyst:

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This does not read to me like a supportive statement from Coats at all. The intelligence committees should seek to have Coats and Haspel answer whether anyone in their agencies was consulted or raised objections to this plan to the White House. https://t.co/30iOEKAXCK

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… then let us make a small request. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We’ve launched a weekly podcast, “We’ve Got Issues,” focused on issues, not tweets. Unlike other news sites, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. We’re not part of a conglomerate, or a project of venture capital bros. From unflinching coverage of racism, to revealing efforts to erode our rights, Raw Story will continue to expose hypocrisy and harm. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

Ex-prosecutor demands congressional investigation after latest report on the FBI and Brett Kavanaugh

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had another allegation of sexual misconduct revealed on Saturday in a bombshell report in The New York Times.

"A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly," the newspaper reported.